Joel Greenblatt

Joel Greenblatt earned an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He founded Gotham Partners in 1985 and ran it for nearly a decade, achieving annualised returns of approximately 50% from 1985 to 1994 — a performance that placed him among the most successful hedge fund managers of his generation. His strategy focused on special situations including spinoffs, restructurings, and merger arbitrage, where he believed information asymmetries gave investors willing to do deep research a significant edge. He later founded Gotham Asset Management, which applies systematic quantitative approaches to value investing. Greenblatt is perhaps most widely known for his 2005 book "The Little Book That Beats the Market" — originally written for his children — which introduced the "Magic Formula" approach to investing: systematically ranking all stocks by two metrics (earnings yield and return on invested capital) and constructing a diversified portfolio of high-ranking stocks. The simplicity and documented historical effectiveness of the Magic Formula made the book one of the most accessible introductions to systematic value investing ever published. It has sold millions of copies globally. Greenblatt also co-founded the Value Investors Club, an online community where professional investors share investment ideas, which has become one of the most respected sources of equity research in the investment community.